As the media becomes more and more pervasive in daily
life, one of the fastest growing historical fields is the
study of how certain nations or groups or individuals have
manipulated the news for their own purposes. There are few
better examples than the British and American demonization
of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany before and during World War
I.

Wilhelm II was a juicy target. Before the war, Lord
Northcliffe, the conservative British press lord, had
regularly abused him as a warmonger and a menace. A
grandson of Queen Victoria, the Kaiser had a prickly
relationship with his British royal cousins and a tendency
to shoot off his mouth about Germany's martial prowess and
its right to a "place in the sun." He was also fond of
discoursing on the danger of "the yellow peril" -- the
growing power of Japan -- and the superiority of white
northern European Protestants. One pundit dubbed him a
German version of Theodore Roosevelt.

Prone to nervous breakdowns -- he suffered three in
the five years preceding the war -- the Kaiser was
extravagantly fond of gorgeous military uniforms, perhaps
an attempt to achieve masculinity in spite of a withered
arm. At his desk, he sat in a saddle because it made him
feel like a warrior. His gaunt face, which featured
haughtily curled mustaches, made him a hostile cartoonist's
dream.

Soon the Kaiser, who had little more control over his
armies than King George V of England had over the British
Expeditionary Force, was being blamed for rapes and murders
in Belgium and called a megalomaniac with a hunger to rule
the world. From here it was only a short step to calling
him "the Mad Dog of Europe" and "The Beast of Berlin."
The British hired a Dutch cartoonist, Louis Raemakers,
to portray the Kaiser as a cross between a Cro-Magnon
primitive and a slavering crocodile. Raemakers' handlers
made sure he was hailed as a great artist and distributed
books of his caricatures in the United States, one of them
with an introduction by Prime Minister Herbert Asquith.
When the artist visited the United States, Woodrow Wilson
invited him to the White House.

In the wake of this tidal wave of hate, it was hardly
surprising to discover that by March 1917, the Rev. Newell
Dwight Hillis, pastor of the Plymouth Congregational Church
in Brooklyn, was telling his well-heeled flock that he was
prepared to forgive the Germans "just as soon as they are
all shot." Then, to fill his cup of happiness to the brim,
he wanted to see "the sight of the Kaiser....hanging by a
rope."

Totally forgotten was the special supplement devoted to the Kaiser in the New
York Times on June 8, 1913, on the 25th anniversary of his coronation. On
its front page, along with a handsome portrait of the monarch in a Navy uniform,
was an effusive salute to him from the paper's editors. The banner headline
at the top read: KAISER, 25 YEARS A RULER, HAILED AS CHIEF PEACEMAKER.
The accompanying story called him "the greatest factor for peace that our
time can show" -- and credited Wilhelm with frequently rescuing Europe
from the brink of war.

Along with the Times's unstinting praise came effusive tributes from
prominent Americans, including Theodore Roosevelt, his White House successor
William Howard Taft, Columbia University president Nicholas Murray Butler and
steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie, whose full page commentary concluded that all
the citizens of the civilized world were the Kaiser's "admiring loving
debtors" for his service to the cause of peace.

When America entered the war, Hollywood decided to make the Kaiser one of their
prime targets. Their opening assault was My Four Years in Germany, a
film based on the book by former Berlin ambassador James W. Gerard. In the first
reel, a card announced: "FACT NOT FICTION." The Kaiser was
portrayed as a man with the IQ of a paranoid six year old. He rode a hobby horse
as he made plans to invade Belgium. The German general staff was introduced
with a series of superimposed images comparing each man to an animal.

Even worse was The Kaiser, The Beast of Berlin, which opened on Broadway
in the spring of 1918. The content more than justified the title. The man whom
the New York Times had acclaimed as the Prince of Peace in 1913 was portrayed
as gloating over slaughtered Belgian civilians and torpedoed ships. To add to
the fun, audiences were told that they could "hiss the Kaiser" every
time his mustachioed face appeared on the screen. Moving Picture World praised
the film: "The scenes are said to be historically accurate and picture
a strong dramatic series of events in a commendable way."

At the end of the war, the Kaiser abdicated and sought
asylum in the Netherlands. There was talk of trying him and
his sons as war criminals but nothing came of it. He spent
the next twenty years in Amerongen Castle, near the town of
Maarn, entertaining guests and keeping in good physical
condition by sawing wood. He died in 1941, distressed by
Germany's plunge into another war.

On July 15, 1959, on the 100th anniversary of the Kaiser's birth, the British
Broadcasting Company released a film about the fallen monarch. Five days before
it was broadcast, its producer, Christopher Sykes, published an article about
it in the Radio Times. He admitted that in his boyhood, even the mention
of the Kaiser sent "tremors of appalled horror through my nerves."
This was not unusual for any Briton who grew up during the era of the Great
War. The myth of the wicked Kaiser had been propagated so relentlessly by British
historians and newspapermen, even otherwise intelligent statesman reacted with
revulsion when they heard Wilhelm's name.

The film was remarkable as much for what it did not
say as for what it said. There was no attempt to explain
how the myth of the wicked Kaiser came into being. The
largely covert British propaganda machine of World War I
remained covert. The myth was merely stated as a fact which
endured for at least ten years after World War I.
Meanwhile, a parade of distinguished Britons such as
Sir Harold Nicholson exonerated the Kaiser from the charge
of starting the war. His responsibility was described as
"small" compared to leaders in Russia and Austria-Hungary.
The VIPs described meetings with the Kaiser before the
war and in his postwar years of exile in Holland. Everyone
burbled about his amiability and sincerity. There was much
talk about his love of England and his devotion to his
grandmother, Queen Victoria. The film closed with
discussions of Wilhelm's old age and death, with flattering
comments on the way he displayed no bitterness toward those
who had slandered him so viciously.

Some pundits speculated that the explanation for the
film was the Cold War. A section of the British press
continued to slander the Germans at every opportunity. Not
a few Germans suspected these attacks reflected British
government policy. The BBC film may have been sponsored by
London to strengthen the British-American alliance with
Germany against Soviet communism. Whatever the motive, the
film achieved at least an approximation of the historical
truth. One commentator said it also demonstrated what
little reliance can be placed on contemporary opinion.

More Comments:

Byron S McCormick -
4/26/2009

By the way this was supposed to be a reply to The NYT by VJ. Hit the wrong link...DOH!

Byron S McCormick -
4/26/2009

"Along with the Times's unstinting praise came effusive tributes from prominent Americans, including Theodore Roosevelt, his White House successor William Howard Taft, Columbia University president Nicholas Murray Butler and steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie, whose full page commentary concluded that all the citizens of the civilized world were the Kaiser's "admiring loving debtors" for his service to the cause of peace"

The article points out how all media outlets at the time assassinated the character of Kaiser Wilhelm. NYT, along with Woodrow Wilson(only a President) and Andrew Carnegie tried to point out that he was peaceful, but instead the wave of PUBLIC opinion, which clearly differs from that of the NYT(based on this web-article), completely overshadowed this man.

This is why people like you shouldn't even be allowed to stay in this country.

You have neither the intelligence nor the inclination to figure this stuff out, just from whats handed to you! OMG you are SOOOO dumb! Its disgusting.

IF you have evidence to support your claim, and its not in this article, please provide it or keep your trap shut. Not only does it bring to light your automatic bias against NYT, but it also shines a light on your ignorance of the subject.

If you would have read the article, you would understand that the propaganda referred to in this article is about media propaganda, which went against the grain of what the NYT was reporting.

My god man, your dumber than Sarah Palin!

Mike W Luckham -
7/19/2004

Mike W Luckham -
7/19/2004

Greetings in the blessed name of our Lord Jesus Christ....Hoping this finds you well...I contact you this
day and am sending you our website to seek as well as another.... exposing the N.W.O. Annuit Coeptis/ Novus Ordo Seclorum....BY THE SCRIPTURES:

BIBLE PROPHECY SAYS:
Revelation Chapter 13

Two "END-TIME" Powers will unite for world takeover to enforce World Dictatorship ..Hence...N.W.O......(Vatican-American) alliance ...Ushering in

May the Lord Jesus Christ bless you with heavenly discernment..........Hope to hear from you soon.....
A servant of Jesus Christ....................................................Take Care, Mike Luckham........ A.O.L.

MIKE LUCKHAM -
9/28/2003

Mike Luckham -
9/5/2003

Dr GJ Weisensee -
6/27/2003

Dear Sir, I heard that the mother tongue of Wilhelm was English, since his mother Victoria was a daughter of Queen Victoria. Wilhelm grew up the first 10 years at least in the UK. Is there any proof about that available? Truly yours, G.J. Weisensee, Bern, Switzerland

VJ -
6/25/2003

It's good to know that the vaunted and frequent lies of the NY Times in order to curry favor with the powerful have a very long and noted tradition! WW1 Propaganda is some of the most amazing I've ever seen. Temple Univ.(PA) had a exhibition on it just a few months back.

Walter Hearne -
6/24/2003

(1) The Kaiser and his courtiers embarked on an aggressive armaments program in the decades preceding World War I, particularly with regard to naval forces. While it is true that the Kaiser had a "tendency to shoot his mouth off," his outbursts about Germany's "place in the sun" were not mere lunatic ravings, but the reflection of Germany's deliberate strategic plan. The scholarship on World War I of the past thirty or so years have overwhelmingly demonstrated that the Great War began because Germany made a calculated, conscious decision that it could gain more from war than could be lost.

(2) The dominant mood of the American, and especially the British publics in the period leading up to World War I was not one of boisterous, militaristic nationalism, but of pacifistic sentiment. The talk of this time, as during the interwar period, was about how outmoded war had become as an instrument of foreign policy. Successive British governments repeatedly refused to step up their armaments programs despite consistent evidence of Germany's aggressive intentions. Left-wing intellectuals and journals repeatedly insisted that Germany's military buildup was the product of British provocation and that "moderation breeds moderation." British statesmen repeatedly failed to recognize the nature of the German regime and assumed that the Kaiser would never do anything so "irrational" as to actually seek or risk a war. Fleming notes that the New York Times hailed the Kaiser as a "chief peacemaker" in 1913 but fails to explain the intellectual climate behind this bewildering statement. But yes, just as Gustav Stresemann would later be seen as a man of peace, and just as Neville Chamberlain believed Hitler was a man he could trust, many people before 1917 could see no wrong in the Kaiser.

(3) That the situation changed so dramatically and rapidly when hostilities broke out, leading to some of the now infamous propaganda of the time, was indicative of a people being so rudely disabused of their erroneous notions. This sort of yo-yo between pacifist foolishness and frenzied nationalism is not all that surprising.

Bill -
6/24/2003

Many years ago I worked with an old man who grew up in the Spuyten Duyvil area in the Bronx. He told me of watching motion pictures being filmed there with actors dressed up in German army uniforms complete with spiked helmets. The actors went through the motions of committing horrible acts against women and children actors. He said that later he saw these shown in movie theaters as newsreels taken in Belgium. I never thought to ask him if this was before or after America's entry into the war.

Ben Cosin -
6/24/2003

It is useful to expose and deplore proppagandistic exploits of the past and the present - especially those undertaken to launch wars...
but WHY are our populations especially prone to such propaganda in relation to foreign affairs?
I would suggest that even the worst of media and politicians are susceptible to domestic pressure from the civil society they rule . Indeed, tyrants since before Haroun al Rashid have paid especial to confidential accounts of civilian 'morale', naturally eschewing public debate. Giant capitalist media corporations try to set the agenda in a comparable though distinct manner. But they cannot evade their domestic bases and the preferences of the public in market societies.
On the foreign affairs front, however, citizens/voters have no direct experience (soldiers are censored, tourists lack the interest, capitalists need governemtn contracts etc in this neo-mercantilist age...)
Governments can and do tell any lie they fancy about thier foreign entanglements and adventures, and the public lack the experience to find them out, certianly hwile poliices are being formulated and executed. Even today Brits use the name of Alsatian for what everyone else calls German shepherd dog - because from 1914 everything German was pogromized in the UK.
The political lesson is that the most democratic foreign policy is the least interventionist. apart from the many other evils of war, the extra encouragement it gives to systematic government lying is not the least.